Apple's anticompetitive behavior has 'gotten worse,' Tile tells congressional panel
Tile, a manufacturer of location tracking hardware and software, on Wednesday told the House Judiciary Committee that Apple continues to participate in anticompetitive behavior despite promising not to do so as part of a resolution reached earlier this year.
In January, Tile and three other companies met with the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's antitrust committee to hash out concerns relating to tech giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google.
During the panel, Tile VP and General Counsel Kirsten Daru said the company enjoyed an amicable relationship with Apple until 2019. After years of collaboration, the relationship began to sour when reports indicated Apple was readying a tracking device that would compete directly with Tile's offerings.
"Unfortunately, since that hearing, Apple's anti-competitive behaviors have gotten worse, not better," Tile said in a statement to the committee posted online on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
In June of 2019, Apple stopped selling Tile products in its retail outlets. The company later poached a Tile engineer, though it is unclear if the person was brought on to develop a competing product. More recently, Apple locked out third-party access to iPhone 11's U1 UWB radios, technology thought to play an integral role in Apple's rumored tracking system.
Perhaps most threatening to Tile's business was Apple's decision to lock down background processes in iOS 13, specifically geolocation services that Tile's iOS app relies on to function. With iOS 13, Apple replaced the "Always Allow" location services option with "Allow Once," prompting users for authorization each time an app requests device location information.
For products like Tile, which regularly ping iPhone's built-in positioning hardware, background processing is essential to delivering a seamless user experience. Without constant access, certain Tile features like Smart Alerts are rendered useless.
Following Tile's testimony in January, Apple issued a statement suggesting certain trusted developers would be able to re-integrate the "Always Allow" option at a later date.
"We're currently working with developers interested in enabling the Always Allow' functionality to enable that feature at the time of setup in a future software update," Apple said.
That capability was not present in the latest iOS 13.4 update released last week. Tile notes Apple's own apps, including Find My, enable background location tracking without user authorization.
"Despite Apple's multiple promises to reinstate Always Allow' background permissions option for third party apps' geolocation services, Apple has not yet done so," Tile said on Wednesday.
The House Judiciary Committee investigation is one of a handful of government probes into tech companies and their business operations. The U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general are looking into claims of monopolization, price fixing, anticompetitive practices and more.
In January, Tile and three other companies met with the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee's antitrust committee to hash out concerns relating to tech giants Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google.
During the panel, Tile VP and General Counsel Kirsten Daru said the company enjoyed an amicable relationship with Apple until 2019. After years of collaboration, the relationship began to sour when reports indicated Apple was readying a tracking device that would compete directly with Tile's offerings.
"Unfortunately, since that hearing, Apple's anti-competitive behaviors have gotten worse, not better," Tile said in a statement to the committee posted online on Wednesday, reports Reuters.
In June of 2019, Apple stopped selling Tile products in its retail outlets. The company later poached a Tile engineer, though it is unclear if the person was brought on to develop a competing product. More recently, Apple locked out third-party access to iPhone 11's U1 UWB radios, technology thought to play an integral role in Apple's rumored tracking system.
Perhaps most threatening to Tile's business was Apple's decision to lock down background processes in iOS 13, specifically geolocation services that Tile's iOS app relies on to function. With iOS 13, Apple replaced the "Always Allow" location services option with "Allow Once," prompting users for authorization each time an app requests device location information.
For products like Tile, which regularly ping iPhone's built-in positioning hardware, background processing is essential to delivering a seamless user experience. Without constant access, certain Tile features like Smart Alerts are rendered useless.
Following Tile's testimony in January, Apple issued a statement suggesting certain trusted developers would be able to re-integrate the "Always Allow" option at a later date.
"We're currently working with developers interested in enabling the Always Allow' functionality to enable that feature at the time of setup in a future software update," Apple said.
That capability was not present in the latest iOS 13.4 update released last week. Tile notes Apple's own apps, including Find My, enable background location tracking without user authorization.
"Despite Apple's multiple promises to reinstate Always Allow' background permissions option for third party apps' geolocation services, Apple has not yet done so," Tile said on Wednesday.
The House Judiciary Committee investigation is one of a handful of government probes into tech companies and their business operations. The U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general are looking into claims of monopolization, price fixing, anticompetitive practices and more.
Comments
Focus on securing “some” competitive advantage
Tile has hardly evolved or diversified as a business since coming on to the scene. The smartphone makers were always in a much better position to deliver a more seamless and integrated experience simply because they created the platform. Tile should have either evolved into other products or looked to be acquired by Google or Apple.
don't get me wrong though; I do appreciate your point.
As soon as Apple releases the tag I will switch to it. Not because Apple is anti-competitive but because I love their products and the integration that comes with them. My Tiles help when I need them but they have not given me any more functionality except for changing the battery and getting a little louder. They are rarely used.
Beyond that, it seems obvious that Tile are using obfuscation (I'm sure they didn't mention the manual option) and FUD to paint Apple in a bad light to cover their own failings. I'm sure Apple will bear that in mind going forward. There's a fine line between "Sherlocking" and "entitlement" by some developers, it seems to me.
No one is entitled to anyone's technology.
What does 2020 have to do with anything? Are you one of those who say "it's [current year], people can do what they want!!" and update the year every year with the same message?
THIS.
While I can sympathise that some of their features relied on Always On location awareness, the core function of their product doesn't use this and the part which does has been largely ineffective before the change - why? Because Tile simply don't have enough users to begin with, and the technology it's based on provided such little accuracy that unless you were tagging an object the size of a car, then you had little chance of tracking it anyway.
Also, I find it pretty outrageous when a company demands access to part of a system for "competitive" reasons. Make no mistake, Tile use this information to run a live network of knowing where every single user of their products and their tagged-items are world wide - with zero oversight whatsoever. It was obscene when Uber did it, and it's obscene that Tile do it.
Apple didn't build their technology in a sealed off bunker, they stood on the shoulders of other giants. That's fine, but now they're a giant, and it seem liike all too often they're flicking off and stomping on the newcomers who are trying to stand on their shoulders just a little bit.
No. That argument only holds water if the iPhone became popular while Apple did not charge the 30% fee for apps. The fact is, that 30% has always been in place and both the iPhone and App Store became hugely successful despite that. Apple has and does play fair with developers, but they cannot play fair with EVERYONE. There will be some that lose out due to the natural evolution of the platform, which has to compete with other platforms.
Furthermore, it is Apple's hardware, and iOS only runs on Apple's hardware and always has. Developers know this. And they know Apple will always have some kind of advantage because they create the whole widget.
The problem here is that Apple are providing both a product and a platform. The two not particularly compatible and create a conflict of interest. I think the greater value of iOS is as a platform, I use non-Apple apps far more than I use Apple apps, so I wish Apple would stop pulling this shit.
The app ecosystem is thriving, the vast majority of downloads are free, consumers LOVE it, and Apple has less than 15% market share. Last, iOS 14 will allow users to set non-Apple services as defaults
So please stop with the drama and trying to create a mythical problem